If You Can’t Make Journalism Profitable, Make It Not-for-Profit
The Canadian Centre for Investigative Reporting, this country’s pioneer of non-profit investigative journalism, models itself on successful US groups such as ProPublica, but the charitable funds just don't match up
A few of Hamilton’s top-ranking police officers and their communications director gather in the Mulberry Street Coffeehouse, as rain gently falls outside on an August morning. They are still in uniform, hats off, looking relaxed as they joke with each other and ease into their chairs in a secluded corner. As investigative journalist and Canadian […]
Journalists with Disabilities Just Want to Be Journalists
They don’t want to be stereotyped as “disability reporters” or advocates, but if journalists with disabilities don’t cover these issues, who will?
When Catherine Frazee applied to study journalism at Carleton University in the 1970s, a senior official at the school told her she would not be able to “elbow her way into the scrum on Parliament Hill” and shouldn’t pursue a career in journalism because she was disabled. She then gave up her scholarship and her […]
Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Is Easy to Sensationalize, Hard to Explain
A neighbourhood best known for addiction, prostitution and homelessness has long been a natural draw for journalists, but that doesn’t mean the coverage has always been good
Francis Monroe McAllister lived in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and died alone outside on a snowy night when the 650 shelter beds in the city were full. Mark Hume, writer for The Globe and Mail, told McAllister’s story in “Dead End Streets,” a 2006 series that painted an eloquent picture of poverty and urban struggle in […]
APTN Is Breaking Big with a Small Team of Dedicated Journalists
Reporters at the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network toiled in obscurity—until they scooped the big guys on the Bruce Carson scandal
A box full of private emails, handed over at a gas station across from Collins Bay Penitentiary in Kingston, helped change what Canadian journalists think of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network news and current affairs division. APTN National News, which first went on air in 2002, positions itself as an alternative to mainstream broadcast news […]
The Journalist Is In—and Dishing about Doctors
Brian Goldman, an emergency room doctor and CBC Radio host, examines the medical community in White Coat, Black Art
One morning in 2009, Brian Goldman interviewed Michael Wansbrough in the doctors’ lounge at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital. They discussed a pill the two had used to get through long night shifts. Modafinil, the generic name for a drug originally developed to treat narcolepsy, has been approved for shift workers, but it’s still a controversial […]
Katherine Monk Goes to the Movies and Offers the View from Her
One of the critics at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival is Postmedia’s Katherine Monk. As usual, she’s surrounded by male colleagues—but that just makes her perspective on the movies even more valuable
Few journalists showed up for the press conference at the Sundance Film Festival. The movie was terrible, but film critic Katherine Monk attended because “there was actually nothing else going on.” She was one of the only women in the room. The director was just “blabbing with the boys” when a reporter asked him for […]
Hana Gartner Investigates Life After Journalism
After 37 years at CBC, the master of the interview leaves the fifth estate and looks forward to whatever comes next
t was the worst possible time for Hana Gartner to develop a case of Montezuma’s revenge, but she was determined not to let it slow her down. After covering a story on Mennonite drug smugglers in Mexico for CBC’s the fifth estate, her plan was to make a quick layover in Toronto before flying to […]
Pioneer Spirits
Four trailblazers who have left old media's falling empires behind set out for new territories. Will they survive?
(Note: This is a somewhat longer version of the same story that originally appeared in the Summer 2011 issue of the RRJ – Ed) The local newscast in Victoria, B.C., looks much like any other local news broadcast. A handsome anchorman wearing a smart suit delivers news of the quest to find a young girl’s […]
Pioneer Spirits
Four trailblazers who have left old media's falling empires behind set out for new territories. Will they survive?
Note: This is a somewhat longer version of the same story that originally appeared in the Summer 2011 issue of the RRJ – Ed) The local newscast in Victoria, B.C., looks much like any other local news broadcast. A handsome anchorman wearing a smart suit delivers news of the quest to find a young girl’s […]
War Torn
When foreign lands fall into chaos. A memoir
When my older brother and I were kids, around ages 10 and 6, we would gather with our friends by a small river on the other side of the fence of our grade school. When the sun went down we’d scour the neighbourhood, collecting empty aerosol cans and building small piles of them by the […]
